New Home for Ben Behind His Voices

News! This is the former site of the blog for "Ben Behind His Voices: One Family's Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope" Please go to its new address, http://benbehindhisvoices.com/blog, where you can follow, subscribe, and see reviews, news and events! Hope to see you there!

NAMI Family-To-Family: Happy 20th Anniversary

My son Ben is two weeks into a job. An actual job, with paychecks and everything. And by “everything”, I mean a reduction in benefits which almost wipes out the money he’s earning…but that’s another story. The main thing is that Ben is earning this money, and that feels completely different to him. The change in his self-esteem is astonishing. He has something to say when people ask him, “So what do you do?”

As the publication date of Ben Behind His Voices approaches,  I find myself thrilled that its launch will coincide with the 20^th Anniversary of NAMI’s Family-to-Family Program, because that is the course that saved my family by teaching me what I needed to know to cope with my son’s mental illness. NAMI helped me, and then I had the tools and the support to help my family – including, eventually, my son.

In January of 2002, I walked into my first F2F meeting – and I walked out completely changed. Although NAMI support groups had thrown me my first lifeline out of the hellish confusion of my son’s symptoms, I needed more. F2F was different from the support meetings in that it was a structured, once-a-week, course that was more educational in nature. In twelve weeks, I could learn about mental illness and its effect on the entire family, including the person who suffered from the illness.  This was taught by other family members who were trained by NAMI to implement the course. And – it was free.  All that was required was the commitment to attend all twelve classes, one evening a week, for 2 ½ hours each class.

What did I get?

Clarity.

Author Reflections: "Ben Behind His Voices" launch date set

It's real! The official publication date for Ben Behind His Voices is September 16, 2011.  When you search on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, there is a listing.  As a first-time author, I have to admit that this is even more exciting than my first kiss. Yep. At least I think so - the first kiss was so unexpected (another story for another time), while this listing is the culmination of  years of writing, rewriting, query letters, bouncing back, trying again, and finding and reconfirming my own faith in the book's value to others.

Yet this is nothing - nothing - compared to the challenges Ben himself has faced in the same period of time.

Creative writing, then and now

Ben is taking two classes this semester: Directing 101 in the Theatre Department, and Creative Writing. The directing class requires a lot of him, things that his illness have compromised: insight into one's own emotions and the feelings of others, social awareness, stillness, complete connection. Do I tell the professor that Ben has this illness, so she is aware she needs to grade him in accordance with his disability?

And...creative writing. Ben's writing used to look like this:


- and that was before it began to look even more scattered and illegible. Now he is writing haikus, and keeping up with assignments. 200 pages of reading assigned between classes, I fear, may cause him too much stress; yet, it is his journey to complete. He is getting assignments in on time, so far - even, in one case, a day early. That requires a connection of cause and effect I haven't seen in years. Still, I want to make sure he gets a fair shake...do I write to the professor?

Meanwhile in this letter, from a Mom in England who has lost her son to schizophrenia, the story has unfortunately ended quite differently.

Ben Behind His Voices this summer!

The cover design has been chosen at last, and it makes the upcoming publication finally seem real. The exact date of publication is still tbd, but it should be in bookstores in August 2011, and available for pre-order at the end of June or by July. There are more updates available by either joining the facebook group "Ben Behind His Voices, the book", or by joining my e-mail list using the link on the home page at http://www.randyekaye.com/ - just specify the "Ben" list when you get to your choices.

Here are some advance comments, though!
Poignant, stark, and the energy of the scenes are set up really well. This work has screenplay written all over it. The dialogue is wonderful and the pace of the story moves briskly. – Nancy DeRosa, author of A Penny’s Worth, and There’s No Place Like Home

opening chapter, the book

This post updated January 28, 2011 - because the "right publisher" has come to us! Rowman and Littlefield will publish Ben Behind His Voices: One Family's Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope in August of 2011! Thanks to Claire Gerus for repping this, and to R&L for believing in it. Please go to www.randyekaye.com to sign up for updates on the book, or join the facebook group Ben Behind His Voices, the book.

Back then I wrote:
The right publisher will help bring hope and understanding to the many families – one out of every four, in fact – who live with mental illness every day.

A young man stands before you. Diagnosis: Schizophrenia.

Is the situation hopeless? No. Is his life worthless? Absolutely not. Is he about to pull out a gun and begin shooting? Despite what the media would have you believe, the answer is still no.

Did his family stand by, helpless and confused, as he fell into pieces bit by bit in ways they could neither understand nor control? Well - yes. Unfortunately, yes.

But is recovery also possible? Can the broken parts be pieced back together? Also – with education, support, acceptance, and love – yes. YES.

I will post excerpts from the book here on this blog, so that others may begin to hear the story. If you want to know more, please follow.

This is from Chapter One:

It’s the night of the Great Northeast Blackout, August 2003. I sit in the ER waiting room, watching my son Benjamin, 21, recently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He stares at his feet, mumbling to himself, possibly to voices only he can hear and whose existence he always denies. Ben glances up at me now and again, his lips in a faint smile but his eyes clouded and unreachable, and then returns to his inner conversation. Suddenly he looks up once more, this time to address the elderly woman seated in another hard plastic chair across from him, coughing violently.

“Excuse me, ma’am, are you all right?” Ben asks.

he woman smiles. “Yes, son, I’ll be OK. Thanks.” She takes a sip of bottled water; her coughing calms. Only then does Ben abandon the battle to stay focused on the outside world, and give in to the voices. Not until then does he return to his own internal world of psychosis. This, I can tell, is a relief for him.

He’s still in there, I thought. He is worth saving.

This was to be Ben’s fifth admittance to the psych unit in six months. It also marked the beginning of his recovery - and the start of my family’s road to acceptance of his illness. No Casseroles for Schizophrenia outlines that journey, from the bewildering and ultimately terrifying arrival of symptoms, through the crises of psychosis and hospitalizations, and finally to the “new normal” of recovery and hope.

Schizophrenia is arguably the most misunderstood mental illness; certainly no one comes to your door with casseroles when your child is hospitalized with this illness, especially after the first time it happens. But a person with schizophrenia is a person still worth loving – and that love helps immeasurably on the journey to recovery and acceptance.

All is not lost.